Stonefly

Stonefly (2021) is a tranquil adventure game where you play the pilot of an insect-like mechanical craft. Tiny and living in an outsized world, you use your vehicle to harness the wind and explore the wilderness. As you meet inhabitants, collect resources and find new worlds you go on a journey of self-discovery, legacy, and belonging.

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Your mission is to get your father's mech back. Your carelessness allowed it to be stolen, and you are desperate to make good on the mistake. Play involves gliding your mech strategically among the beautiful flora and dangerous fauna. You negotiate hungry bugs, meet memorable characters and avoid hitting the ground at all costs.

The game is unusual not only for the miniature mechs and even smaller pilots but the world through which you fly. It's intricately created and offers a layered environment you can explore and use to your advantage. Your missions take you through tree canopies, marshes and prickly briars in the world's undiscovered nature scapes.

Enemies are in the form of bugs. These can be hard to defeat at first, but once you get used to using thermals and updrafts to aid flight you can outmanoeuvre them. There are then different ways to deal with them - flip them over and push them to the ground, stun them or use decoys to distract them. These encounters grant you minerals that you can use to craft specialized mech parts to match your play style.

The result is an unusual game. The play has a rhythm that switches from the excitement of exploration during the day, to being back at camp at night talking to people and upgrading systems. As combat role-play games go, this one is beautiful and surprisingly calm.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Stonefly 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Ellen Robertson and updated 7 weeks ago.